Kentucky Fried Garden is my journal of vegetable gardening in humid western Kentucky USDA zone 7a. Knowing where my food comes from and whether it comes from non-genetically modified seed is important to me. I try to use open pollinated varieties in an effort to continue maintaining the diversity of food plants available to humans. Trying to extend the harvest by experimenting with hardier varieties and overwintering plants will be one of my projects.

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September 26, 2016

I've had a surprise harvest. Having left the loofa vines in the ground since they were extra lush and having taken over the whole row of trellises and starting their meander over the fence, they have finally decided to blossom and produce.

The angled luffas on the left are longer and thicker so my guess are these are the Extra Long and the four on the right are the Chinese Okra variety. Loofahs belong to the same family as cucumbers, squashes, and watermelon. And like cucumbers if they don't get enough water they can get a slightly bitter flavor.

They're easy to prepare, I just peel off the skin and then saute in olive oil with a little garlic and salt and pepper, and maybe a dash of nuoc mam.

I'm also growing a smooth variety called Summer Cross but the fruit it's forming are irregular and dying on the vine, perhaps the plants are more susceptible to squash and harlequin bugs.

You can see the dead bean vines on this trellis that the loofahs have taken over.

There are loofas everywhere, the little yellow blobs on the ground are spent loofah flowers.

They are very good at climbing fences and seem fairly drought resistant, although without regular watering you risk a bitter fruit now and then.

The vines are massive so it's no surprise the fruit grow so quickly.

Please join us at Harvest Monday where new and experienced gardeners share their delightful vegetables.

September 12, 2016

The tomato beds have been cleared out so these are definitely the last of the tomatoes for the year. It's still been in the mid 90's all last week (35 degrees Celsius), so peppers still aren't setting much fruit. It's supposed to cool down now but I'll probably start pulling pepper plants up since it's late in the season for them to be putting on fruit.

Eggplants along with loofa and peppers are pretty much the only things left in the garden. (I accidently mangled the winter melon plants cleaning out the beds.) The green eggplant at the bottom is Cambodian Green Giant which is seedless and incredibly tender at this size, the plants themselves set fruit very late with this being the first.

It's mid-September and the loofah plants are finally covered in blossoms. Summer Cross is one of the varieties we're growing that's supposed to be day length neutral, even so they didn't start blossoming till August.

I had to pull out all the Brussels sprout and broccoli plants, they were dead or dying and covered in harlequin bugs. Harlequin bugs are kind of pretty compared to squash bugs, but they quickly overwhelmed the two beds and sucked the life out of all the brassica plants. Next year I'll be covering the plants.

Today is set to finish cleaning out the garden and maybe do some direct seeding of turnips, fennel, and radishes and then I'll start a few seeds for greens.

I hope everyone in the northern hemisphere is starting to enjoy the cooler weather and the coming of fall. Please join us at Harvest Monday where gardeners come together to share the joys and trials of gardening.